The Jew's Wife & Other Stories Read Online Free Page B

Perhaps
Our Lord wanted him,” he ventured, feeling bound to offer some
alternative to her hard resignation.
        For a
moment her eyes remained fixed on the horizon. Then she turned
slowly toward him. Her face was strangely animated—with anger, he
realized. It gave her a terrible beauty. But she spoke quietly,
without rancor.
       “ I wanted him more.”

   
       
       
        CHAPTER THREE
       
        The car
was not worth repairing, the mechanic said, his eyes dark from lack
of sleep. There were half a dozen things wrong, some of them major.
Any one of them could disable the vehicle without warning.
Operating it could even be dangerous.
        Father
Walther hadn’t considered replacing the Ford for another year. Some
parishioners had offered to buy him a new car, but he put them off
with jokes about his attachment to the old shebang. Now he may have
no choice but to go to them for help—a car was an essential for a
priest.
        The
mechanic offered to buy back the battery at cost and charge only a
nominal amount for labor. He also offered to tow the car to a
junkyard or, if Father Walther preferred, ask one of the other
service stations in the area to do so.
        His
offers seemed reasonable enough. Even if the man made some sort of
arrangement with the junkman, he would probably not come out any
better than if he left the battery in, replaced a couple other
parts, and sent his customer on his way.
        On the
other hand, the priest had no way of knowing if he was being told
the whole truth. He believed the only way to keep people honest was
to treat them as such. But he knew it probably didn’t work most of
the time, and he didn’t enjoy being duped anymore than the next
fellow. Some people were hopelessly unscrupulous—almost hopelessly.
You couldn’t live as if a little Christian charity would magically
cure everyone of greed and selfishness. A mendicant might have the
luxury of being able to play Saint Francis, but he was a secular
priest—one who had to live in the world, if not of it.
        His head
ached with confusion. He was again eating the mechanic’s food and
making conversation, such as it was. But all the while he was
racked with indecision.
       “ Sleep
on it,” the mechanic told him after a dessert of raspberry-lime
Jello. No one had mentioned the Ford since they had sat down to
dinner, but the man seemed to know what was on the priest’s mind.
Meanwhile, there was no question about Father Walther’s not
spending the night. The mechanic had brought home his suitcase. The
priest was grateful for that. His office was inside and he must
complete reading it before midnight—technically, by one a.m. during
Daylight Saving Time. He also knew he had no alternative to
accepting their hospitality. But to show good faith he decided to
tell the mechanic that he would take his advice about the car. The
mechanic merely nodded for reply, but Father Walther felt better
for having spoken. If nothing else, he felt reassured that secular
prudence and Christian ethics could sometimes coincide.
        In the
morning he returned to the garage to get the rest of his
belongings. The mechanic figured the junkman would offer sixty or
seventy dollars for the car. Father Walther asked if that would
cover the cost of his labor. After a moment’s grave deliberation
the mechanic said it would. They rode in silence then. Silence
seemed to be the man’s normal medium, but this time he seemed
unusually preoccupied. Finally he cleared his throat and declared
above the roar of wind and muffler, “I’ll send you a check for any
refund.”
        He had
called his mother the previous evening and finally heard some
concern in her voice. He assumed the concern was for his
predicament (along with trepidation about his spending the night
with Protestants). But when he telephoned again after turning over
the keys to the Ford, he realized something else was bothering
her.
       “ The